Published 3:00 am, Thursday, April 16, 2015

In one of the most amazing and lopsided votes of the U. S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee (19-0), President Barack Obama was rebuffed for his reluctance to follow the Constitution and present his Iranian Treaty to them for approval. Nine Democrats joined their Republican colleagues to force the President to do so, rather than allow him to just implement it on his own or through the United Nations, which appeared to be his intent. The Senate will not be bypassed.

The President’s own political party, at least on this issue, against its own leadership is finally standing with the Constitution which reads: The President “shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur” (Article II, Section 2, Clause 2). The advice function is performed during the creation of a treaty and the consent function thereafter, once an agreement is presented to them. Many 20th Century presidents ignored the Constitution and did not seek the advice of the Senate when they created treaties and certainly Obama refused to do so, preferring to prepare a treaty without any transparency with the Senate. Totally ignored on the first function, this was not going to be permitted on their consent function. They await the President’s presentation of the treaty to them as required by the Constitution before any possibility of lifting economic sanctions is authorized, a provision desperately wanted by the Iranians.

Once again the treaty must be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate. Without this majority vote it is meaningless. That all committee Democrats chose to stand for this constitutional process gives Obama no leverage to ignore the Senate function which is to give consent or not. They have final say, not he. There is no veto function on treaties. It dies on the spot without their consent. Realizing that Democratic Senators were not supporting the treaty as written, Obama finally caved in on presenting the treaty to the U. S. Senate and accepting some changes, as a yes vote without presentation and some change, after offending the Senate, was very unlikely. Obama would never have done so without the Democrats valiant stand against him.

The significance of the Democratic Party stand on this issue cannot be over stated. Their commendable stand effectively saved this part of the Constitution because had they not stood two things would have followed. First, this president would have been embolden to push the limits of unconstitutional executive power even further and second, such extension would have been used by future presidents, both Republican and Democrat, as acceptable past practice to legitimize future extensions of power. One might as well remove the advice and consent clause from the Constitution, as it would be so damaged as not to function as intended in the future.

Why every Democrat on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations committee chose to go against their own president, none have said. Perhaps it is because they too are afraid of Barack Obama’s inclination to ignore constitutional law. This Congress has experienced the most encroaching president on legislating and treaty-making power since Franklin D. Roosevelt and they too were not certain that he intended to present the finished treaty to them for ratification. Remember, this is the same president who by executive order, bypassed Congress on executive amnesty thereby making law by himself and independently changed parts of the National Health Care Bill at least 14 times with a stroke of the pen with no constitutional authority. Perhaps they could see their authority being eroded. Hopefully they understood that if a Republican president did the same thing, increasingly undermining the constitutional separation of powers leaving the Senate weaker than before, this would not be good.

Hopefully this is so, because until this president adopts some measure of constitutional integrity or is removed from power, fellow Democrats must stand on other parts of the Constitution in order to save them. This should be but a beginning. We have drifted from constitutional integrity for so long. And when a Republican president again occupies the executive branch, hopefully Senate Republicans too will swallow their pride and stand with the Democrats against their own to save the Constitution from Republican damage to it. We express our pleasure with the stand taken by the U. S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and especially with the nine Democrats who put constitutional loyalty over party.

Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.